Drael Lenarre was born in the season of fire on 08/02/724, and she grew up in the town of Pondat, just half a day southward of Erol in the Nahechaian Dynasty. She was the daughter of a poor family, Kadin and Lewynne Lenarre. Her father's tapestry shop found few customers there and her mother's pottery just making up enough for them to survive in the small house they rented from Drael's uncle, Caldor. Drael never liked Caldor very much, he always has a sneer on his face when he looked at her, and the idea he would charge his own sister and bother-in-law for a house he had no other use for put him on her bad side.
When she was old enough she worked with her father on the tapestries, learning about the delicate knots and weaves used to depict images with the colorful strands of yarn. She enjoyed that for a while but soon found other interests, like the sparkle of the gems and shinny jewelry in the shop across the way. Her best friend's parents owned that shop and she was welcome to help out as long as her father or mother didn't need her. And Molly and Drael spent many happy afternoons there. Molly's parents praised Drael for her good eye, picking out the flaws of those jewels some customers brought in and her smooth approach to selling the goods that seemed to sit in the display cases for ages. Eventually they offered to pay her for her service and she was able to bring in another small income to her parent's home.
When she turned 13, shortly after she began working at the jewelry shop, her uncle came to the house and demanded more money for the rent. Caldor argued with Kadin, and being the larger one as well as a bully all his life, Caldor struck down her father with his fist and threatened to evict his family if they didn't pay him by the end of the pholar. Well no matter how hard they worked they just could not afford her uncle's ridiculous price. Drael became worried, fearing more than just being put on the streets for her uncle was known for his cruelty and temper. She quietly took some rubies and a necklace, knowing their worth would more than cover her uncle's demand, and hid them in her pouch.
Returning home that night with a guilty conscience and a pouch full of stolen jewels, when her uncle came, as he said he would, and demanded the money, she planned to save her family. Her father pleaded with Caldor, telling him they had no more money to give. Drael saw her uncle start to loose his temper so she raised her voice and when they looked at her she poured the jewels and necklace onto the table. Her uncle's eyes nearly popped out of his skull with greed as he snatched up the jewels to inspect them, but her father grew angry with her demanding to know how she got them. Her mother said nothing, as was her nature to let the men handle such affairs. Drael told the truth, but also argued logic of necessity, and he dropped it, for he needed a roof over his family's head after all.
They managed to make the increased rent for another year, skimping in other areas and pulling the belts a little tighter. But soon her uncle came again, demanding more money. Again there was no other way but to take from her employer's inventory and hope they would write it off as a small time thief who got away. That night when she showed him an emerald bracelet, he grinned and took it, then told her parents that he would let them stay at the house for free if he could take Drael to work for him. He said he knew of a jewelry shop in Nahecha that would pay far more for her services. So they agreed and Drael was shipped off to her uncle's manor near Erol.
When she arrived he handed her a sack and told her about the jewelry shop in Erol, but he didn't want her to work there, he wanted her to sneak in and fill the sack up with the most expensive items. Drael refused but he threatened to kill her family if she didn't, so what could she do?
He insisted she steal smaller items, to help keep a low profile, but his demands and avarice were growing by the day. After a couple of years of this petty thievery, Drael became used to her uncle's greedy whims, managing never to get caught on her midnight forays. He took her booty each time and sent it to distant towns to be sold, but never gave her anything. Even her clothes had to be ripped and worn through before he'd buy her new ones. Still, she did manage to secret away some smaller jewels in her room, preparing herself to leave his 'slavery' and buy her parents a new home far away from her uncle.
By the time she was 16 her uncle had taken her to Nahecha, to work in a larger city with more targets. He kept her in a hovel, no more than a dilapidated shack on the outskirts of Nahecha. One night, her uncle came to her vermin infested bed and woke her. CENSORSHIP REARS ITS UGLY HEAD. A few hours after he left her weeping on the bed, bruised and disgusted with herself and men in general, she gathered up all she owned and her secret stash of valuables and put them all in the little black pack her uncle had bought for her to use on her 'excursions'. She snuck away, quietly into the night, running away as quickly and silently as she could until she came to a stand of trees where she rested for the night.
Keeping off the highway, a normal 5 or 6 day journey took nearly double that time, stopping only to steal enough to eat from nearby farms or using her sling to hunt small animals, but eventually, she did make it home to Pondat. When she turned down the street which led to her parent's home she caught a whiff of an old fire long since burnt out. A few quick paces later and she came upon the burnt remains of her childhood home. She went inside but found no one, then asked Molly what had happened. Molly told her the awful tale about how 10 days ago the house went up in smoke, both her parent's died, apparently stuck in their room by a large shelf that had 'fallen' in front of it. Drael could hardly believe it. Even if her uncle had wanted to, he couldn't possibly have made the journey in less than a day or so. It had taken her nearly a dozen days. Even taking a road directly, it should have taken him at least 5 or 6 days to reach Pondat from Nahecha.
After a long while with Molly, crying together as they did in the past when things didn't work out so well for either of them, Drael finally went back in and found the bedroom door cleared away, probably by the guards, and her parent's remains were already gone, buried in some pauper's grave. She looked around for anything she could take with her to remember them by, but what little they had was either burned or stolen by now. As she walked around the bed her foot went through one of the floorboards. Cursing, she pulled her foot free and looked at the blackened hole. She found a set of four daggers inside, each identical and perfectly balanced, with ebony hilts bound by red twine. She also found some old moth eaten material that crumbled in her fingers. She kept the daggers but found nothing else, and so she left the remains of the house.
She begged Molly not to tell anyone she had been there, especially her uncle. She even considered telling Mol about what her uncle had done to her, but knew Molly might not be able to keep so big a secret from her other friends, and so far, Drael has never told anyone about that awful night, dwelling instead on how horrible it must have been to be burned alive, suppressing the awful moment as best she could. Crying again, the girls hugged each other and said their good byes, Molly knowing full well she would probably never see her best friend again. And with that, Drael left the town without ever looking back. Only three things might make her wish to return. Molly, her parent's graves, and her uncle, but for now, it would be far better for her to simply disappear.
She lived the next five years or so floating from town to town, stealing only when she needed money and moving on when they caught onto her. If nothing else, her uncle gave her the ability to live with little effort, and she preferred that to working day to day in the same place and getting no where. As she grew and matured, her beauty became noticeable to many men, but their attentions would upset her and she shunned them recalling what her uncle did to her.
Eventually she made her way to Alodar, having discovered she can remain in larger cities longer before being forced to leave, but a few steps ahead to the local guard, and she also thought she might run into her uncle if she continued to stay in the Dynasty. Besides she's always wanted to see the sea, or more specifically, the great harbor and fantastic ships she had heard tales of time and again from Molly's father.
So Drael found herself walking the streets of Alodar, getting to know the area more and more with each passing day. And then, one day, she happened upon a large and very ugly man following a smaller man. The ugly thug reminded her of her uncle so she decided this ugly bastard wasn't going to get away with what ever he had in mind, if he were up to no good. And the thug eventually did attack the smaller man. Taking just enough time to save the smaller man's life, Drael followed the thug back to an inn, the Ferryman's Inn it was called, and decided to come back later that night.
Silently climbing up to the roof of the inn, Drael then lowered herself on her rope, hovering just outside the third floor window where this awful man had gone. Good, no one had seen her. Now she would just bide her time.